The Smile of a Ghost

‘We’re in the pub one night, half a dozen of us, discussing this business of the heavy breathing in the tower — giving it somewhat salacious overtones, I’m afraid. I said it was all a load of rubbish, probably dreamed up to attract more visitors to the castle. Someone said, how can you say that, all the nonsense you’ve got to swallow and regurgitate every Sunday? Anyway, the upshot, there was a bet… ten quid.’

‘Lot of money back then, I’d guess.’

‘Curates were paid even worse in those days, and I was engaged at the time, so, yes, ten pounds… well worth having. There were five of them, and they threw in a couple of quid each. One of them, you see, knew a way into the castle at night, over one of the walls, Dinham end, and then… anyway…’

‘You didn’t…’

‘If it had been for a whole night, I definitely wouldn’t have, but it was quite a warm evening — warmer than tonight — and we agreed on two hours. I had to swear on the Bible that I wouldn’t sneak out. The deal was two hours, absolutely on my own in the Hanging Tower, and if I was still there when they came to get me, around half past midnight, the money was all mine.’

‘You astound me, Bernard.’

‘Wasn’t going to tell you in front of Mumford, that’s for sure. Anyway, we all went in together first. I’d never been in the Hanging Tower before. You have to go across the Inner Bailey — there’s a wonderful Norman chapel in the middle, dedicated to St Mary Magdalene — and then into a sort of great hall, which is rather eerie because it has these sculpted stone faces on the walls. One of my friends had a torch and he kept lighting up the faces, making woo-woo sort of noises. All pretty juvenile.’

They were walking downhill now, towards the old town gate, where the roadway still passed under an arch with lighted rooms over it.

‘The so-called Hanging Tower protrudes from the rear of the castle — must have been two or three storeys high originally, but there’s no roof now, so you can just see the windows in recesses, one above the other, and then the sky. Small rooms now — six of us filled the space, but when the others had gone… most unpleasant.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have done it.’

‘It was a boy thing, as they say. Castle’s a very different place at night, hadn’t realized that — all that nice, mellow, honey stone. But when you’re absolutely on your own inside an enormous walled ruin, it’s… black. Smells… the thought of rats. And cold as hell in there, a clammy damp in the air. I spent the first hour at the window — least I thought it was an hour, probably ten minutes — looking out at the few visible lights. Night mist coming off the river, and I couldn’t see the ground, or the sky, and it felt… I gather it’s commonplace if you’re on a high building and suffering from vertigo to want to… you know…’

‘You wanted to jump?’

They were alone on the street, no cars for a few moments, and Bernie’s voice was resonating as though in a small church as they passed under the short tunnel which had once been Broad Gate.

‘Probably couldn’t squeeze through now, but I could have then. Didn’t like it, anyway, so I had to move back into the dark. In the end I found myself hunched up in a corner, in near-total darkness, which was like being entombed, and I… at some point I became aware of an unhappiness. Almost a physical thing, rather like when you feel the beginnings of a sore throat and it’s no more than an unpleasant taste. Have you ever tried to pray and you couldn’t?’

‘Not sure.’ Merrily lit another cigarette. ‘Been times I’m ashamed of when I just couldn’t do it because it seemed worthless… useless. Slippage of faith.’

‘No, we’ve all been there. This was an actual physical inability to pray when I very much wanted to. The way an asthmatic can’t find breath. Here I was, a fairly recently ordained minister of the Church, and I… could not pray.’

‘That would be scary.’

‘Panic. The unthinkable. The feeling that it just didn’t work here, that God had been excluded from this place. I remember — it seems laughable now— No, actually, none of that night seems remotely laughable — I remember thinking of the ten quid at stake, and how despicable that had been. How what was happening to me was a direct result of that. That what I’d done — taking that bet — had been almost evil. I… when you asked me earlier tonight if I did the National Lottery, no, I don’t. I’ve avoided anything approximating to a bet ever since.’

Merrily stopped on the wide pavement, under the first street lamp beyond what had been the town boundary, the road sloping to the River Teme at Ludford Bridge.

‘What happened?’

‘I ran away, of course. Or stumbled away would be more accurate. When I realized I was actually cringing into the stones, like a cornered animal, I… threw out a prayer, like a sort of yelp. Just God help me! Just praying that I could move. And I did move. Like the clappers. And you’re probably smiling.’

‘I’m not, honest, boss.’

‘I’ll cut it short. There are two ways out of that tower, and I took the wrong one at first and came up against some steps that led nowhere any more, a blank wall, and that was horrifying, as if whichever way I went I’d come up against a wall that hadn’t been there when I went in. Imagination, in these situations, becomes so unbelievably powerful. So I scrambled back down and back into the chamber and… well… that’s when I saw her. I bloody saw her.’

‘What?’

‘She was— Look at me…’ The Bishop held his hands out under a street light. ‘After all these years… still shaking.’

‘You saw Marion?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I don’t know who or what it was, but I remember I did know, with a quite awful certainty, that something was going to happen as soon as I re-entered the chamber. Partly because of the cold — yes, I do know that’s a cliche. But it wasn’t a normal cold, not a healthy cold — not like rushing wind or crackling frost. It was a negativity, an absence, a hollow-ness… an area in which warmth couldn’t exist. Any more than normal prayer.’

Bernie held the lamp-post, like a drunk, Merrily feeling chilled now. One of those attic moments, when you opened an old chest to expose ancient rotting fabric.

The Bishop’s tale. She wondered when he’d last told it to anyone. And she wondered why, in all the discussions they’d had about the nature of Deliverance, he’d never even hinted at a personal experience.

‘She… it was… as I re-entered the chamber, there was a paleness. I can see it now, but I still can’t properly describe it — only my own reactions to something that seemed to be made of nothing more than the cold air and the damp unfurling from the stone. I wasn’t aware of a face, but I was sensing a horrible smile that was more like an absence of smile. A smile so cold, so bleak, so devoid of hope… only this perpetual, bitter… terminality.’

Merrily brought the cigarette to her mouth. It had gone out. As she fumbled for her lighter, the Bishop stepped away from the lamp-post, rubbing the warm blood back into his hands.

And then, as Merrily’s lighter flared, so did bigger lights — flashing white and orange and wild blue, bouncing from pale walls and darkened windows.

10 Leave God Out of It

The road had already been closed below Ludford Bridge, which explained the sparseness of traffic on Broad Street.

Not so sparse, though, at the bottom of the hill, where there had once been mills and the distinctive Horseshoe Weir sent the River Teme rushing over flat rocks — a beauty spot on the edge of town, now a garish confluence of hysterical light: an ambulance, police cars, blue beacons still revolving, inviting an audience like bleak neon.

‘Road accident, looks like,’ Bernie Dunmore said. ‘Funny we didn’t hear it happen. Better turn back, I suppose. Last thing they need is—’

‘Andy.’ In the full-beam headlights of a static vehicle, Merrily could see the stocky figure climbing over the